This invention involves a method of feeding and a device to facilitate feeding horses. Specifically, this invention involves a method to allow horses to ingest feed, while avoiding the danger of a condition known as sand colic.
The raising of horses is a major industry as well as a hobby or major avocation for many persons in the United States and around the world. The horses' life is spent mostly out of doors. Under the best of circumstances, when weather allows, the horse is most content when running free in a fenced in enclosure. It would be preferable for the horse to enter a building only to sleep at night. However, it is necessary, using present devices and methods, to bring the horses indoors when feeding. As a consequence, it is necessary for the owner or his agents to go outside, round up the horses and bring them indoors for each feedings. A horse is normally fed twice a day and it is desirable not to feed the horse just before the horse goes to sleep for health reasons. As a consequence, it is necessary to bring the horses in and then let the horses out into an open area after feeding. This requires inconvenient personal time for the hobbyist and a substantial manpower cost for the professional horse breeder.
Although many domesticated animals are fed outdoors, horses commonly contract "sand colic" if they eat outdoors. This condition may be lethal and at best is a serious illness. The condition is contracted during the eating process. The nature of the granular feed and the horses' eating habits typically spill a substantial amount of food on the ground. The horse, upon finishing the feed in the feed bucket will then proceed to eat any food that has dropped on the ground. Unless the ground is absolutely clean of dirt, the horse, must of necessity, eat a substantial amount of sand and dirt. This causes sand colic and results in the death of hundreds, if not thousands, of horses each year.
Certain types of devices have been proposed, including restraints which prevent the horse from removing its head from the feed pail. This and other solutions are not practical and further do not satisfy the objects above nor attain the objects described herein below.